"هون عندك حياتك وعندك كل عاداتك، وكبرتي كأن الإحساس بالغربة انولد معك. بطل يساعك جلدك، ولا بيساع أحلامك. خيفانة تنامي سنين وتوعي وبعدك بنت بيك." - مشروع ليلى


I saw my father again after seven years,
not in the hazy blur of childhood,
not in the echoes of a past I barely touch,
but in the raw light of adulthood,
where words weighed heavy and truth sat shamelessly between us.
He spoke in echoes of men I’ve known,
reasons strung together like old rosary beads,
excuses polished smooth with time,
his voice laced with all the wrong apologies,
his words slipped like sea foam on the Corniche,
dissolved in a silence that meant more than anything he said,
before they ever reached the right woman.
And yet—
A memory stood untouched by time.
On Piccadilly theater red velvet seats,
his shadow sat at the edge breathing in dust,
between flickering lights and the hum of Hamra streets.
my twelve-year-old voice stretched towards a dream.


For once, he was watching, listening,
not as the man I would come to know,
but as the hero I once believed in.

Here, you gave me life and all your habits and left.
I grew and the feeling of exile was born from you.
My skin no longer fits me, nor does it hold your face.
I slept for years and when I wake, I'm still my father's daughter,
I will always hold his names.
A wound I wear like gold around my neck.

And so—

I left him there, where the past still flickers,
where the seats are worn but the stage remains.
With the only memory that does not crumble like plaster.
The only one as warm as a coffee with Fairuz at dawn.
No longer waiting for him to meet me where I stand,
I carry his absence the way this city carries her ruins.